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Domain: tim-mann.org

Stories and comments across the archive that link to tim-mann.org.

Comments · 17

  1. Re:Screw Card Games! by msoftsucks · · Score: 1 · on Why Windows Solitaire Eats So Much Time

    Download WinBoard from:

    http://www.tim-mann.org/xboard.html

    It plays very well and is somewhat hard to beat.

  2. Vista not necessary by Weaselmancer · · Score: 4, Funny · on Why Windows Solitaire Eats So Much Time

    Just grab GNU chess Windows port.

    Funny story about GNU chess.

    Back when I was in college I had two friends that were sharing an apartment. One worked in the day, the other at night. Their only communication was a chessboard on top of the TV. Each person would take a move before going to bed.

    One friend cheated. He compiled GNU chess on his Linux box, inputted the board, cranked it up to nearly maximum, and left it to calculate the next move. It would take about 10 hours or so to calculate its next move.

    He'd come home from work, make a sandwich, login and get his move, and go to bed. Needless to say he was kicking much ass, and his friend was mightily puzzled at his ability to do so.

    He finally came clean though - it was a pretty funny scene when he did. =)

  3. Re:My C64 floppy could do that! by general_re · · Score: 1 · on Scanjet Music

    CoCo had color, but I assure you the TRS-80 sure didn't. Hell, the Model I didn't even have lowercase *letters*, unless you replaced the character generator. More here:

    http://www.tim-mann.org/trs80faq.html#%5B17%5D

  4. Re:Doesn't take that long ... by SVDave · · Score: 1 · on The Digital Dark Age

      I have a bunch of old DSDD 40-track hard-sector TRS-80 5.25" floppy disks (NEWDOS/80v2 format) that I'd love be able to read.

    So get yourself a PCI Catweasel MK4 controller (or MK2, if you have an ISA slot), a Linux box, a 5.25" floppy drive, and this guy's software.

    Done. And it took me all of two minutes on Google to find.

    And, given that for every TRS-80 hard drive sold, I would guess that somewhere around 1 million CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drives have been sold, I'd say you'll still be able to find hardware to read CD-ROMs in 2105, never mind 2045.

    Whether your CD-Rs will last that long is the real issue.
  5. Re:It's not really useful if... by advocate_one · · Score: 1 · on Xen 2.0 Virtual Machine Monitor Released

    seek and ye shall find... xtrs

  6. PGN of games 1 and 2 by rayde · · Score: 3, Informative · on Hydra vs. Shredder

    for those actually interested in the games themselves, here are games 1 and 2 in PGN. You can view them with winboard/xboard . Just paste them into a .pgn file.

    [Event "Match rapid 90 min"]
    [Site "Abu Dhabi"]
    [Date "2004.08.14"]
    [Round "1"]
    [White "Hydra"]
    [Black "Shredder"]
    [Result "1-0"]
    [ECO "B80"]
    [PlyCount "75"]
    [EventDate "2004.??.??"]

    1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 a6 6. Be3 e6 7. f3 b5 8. g4 h6
    9. Qd2 Nbd7 10. O-O-O Bb7 11. h4 d5 12. exd5 Nxd5 13. Nxd5 Bxd5 14. Bg2 Ne5 15.
    Qe2 Qa5 16. f4 Qxa2 17. Bxd5 Qa1+ 18. Kd2 Bb4+ 19. c3 Qxb2+ 20. Ke1 Bxc3+ 21.
    Kf1 exd5 22. fxe5 Qb4 23. Bf2 O-O 24. g5 Bxd4 25. Bxd4 h5 26. Kg2 Rac8 27. Rhf1
    Qe7 28. Qxh5 Rc2+ 29. Kg3 Rc6 30. Rd3 a5 31. Rdf3 Re6 32. Rf6 Rxe5 33. Bxe5
    Qxe5+ 34. R6f4 a4 35. Kg2 d4 36. Rxf7 Qd5+ 37. R7f3 Rc8 38. Re1 1-0

    [Event "Match rapid 90 min"]
    [Site "Abu Dhabi"]
    [Date "2004.08.15"]
    [Round "2"]
    [White "Shredder"]
    [Black "Hydra"]
    [Result "0-1"]
    [ECO "B97"]
    [PlyCount "102"]
    [EventDate "2004.??.??"]

    1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 a6 6. Bg5 e6 7. f4 Qb6 8. Nb3
    Be7 9. Qf3 Nbd7 10. O-O-O Qc7 11. Kb1 b5 12. Bd3 b4 13. Ne2 Bb7 14. Qh3 Nxe4
    15. Bxe7 Kxe7 16. Qh4+ Ndf6 17. Rhe1 h6 18. f5 e5 19. Nf4 Ng5 20. Nh5 Nxh5 21.
    Qxh5 Bxg2 22. Nd2 a5 23. h4 Nh7 24. Qe2 Bc6 25. Rg1 Rhg8 26. Ne4 Bxe4 27. Bxe4
    Rac8 28. Bd3 Qb6 29. Bb5 Nf6 30. Ba4 e4 31. Rde1 Qc5 32. Qa6 d5 33. Rd1 d4 34.
    Bb3 Rc6 35. Qe2 Kf8 36. Ba4 Rd6 37. Qf1 Rd8 38. Qa6 Qc7 39. Qb5 Rh8 40. Qf1 Rh7
    41. Bb3 h5 42. Ba4 e3 43. Qb5 Rh6 44. Rg2 Rd5 45. Qf1 Ng4 46. Bb3 Rd8 47. Ba4
    Rf6 48. Re1 g6 49. Rc1 Rxf5 50. Qe2 Qe7 51. Bb5 Qxh4 0-1

  7. winboard/xboard by bowronch · · Score: 1 · on Apple's Chess 2.0 Source Code Available

    If you are interested in this, you might be also interested in Xboard/Winboard by Tim Mann... They are open source interfaces to text based chess engines... This allows you to write a chess program using text interface and use winboard for your GUI... lets you focus on the fun stuff like bitboards and hashtables...

    the link for xboard/winboard can be found here

    And as a shameless plug you might be interestd in checking out my chess engine (BCE) that can be run under xboard that can be found here

  8. Re:It's not like I rode the Short Bus to school by Zan+Zu+from+Eridu · · Score: 1 · on Kasparov Wins Game 3 Against X3D Fritz
    Then I must go back to OS X gnuChess which mocks me every time I play, "You are stupid. I will not play you again."

    Try installing Crafty as your chess engine if you're in to masochism. If you really like the pain, install the endgame databases and get those lovely "mate in 57 moves" announcements.

  9. emulator and game bins by maynard · · Score: 1 · on Masters of Doom

    Tim Mann puts out a TRS-80 emulator for X that compiles easily on x86 Linux and which runs these Trash 80 binary image files. Included in the list is Deathmaze 5000, Labyrinth, and Asylum. Unfortunately, I can't seem to find any screenshots for comparison with yours. I'm seem to remember that Deathmaze first came out in 1979, and then the other two games came out in the years thereafter. I think Deathmaze actually does predate 3D Monster Maze, but only by a couple years. Excellent screenshot, BTW. Thanks! --M

  10. Re:freechess.org by thdexter · · Score: 1 · on Building A Homemade Chess Supercomputer

    Winboard and XBoard (for windows and X, respectively) both are able to connect to FICS immediately after download. Use them, they're good.

    I'm mkilly; finger mkilly to check if I'm online and see my terrible ratings in everything but suicide chess. Who're you, jtcm?

  11. Re:Chess by kotonk · · Score: 1 · on The Best of Windows Open Source Software?

    There's some pretty open source good chess software out there:

    -Tim Mann's winboard (GUI, mentioned in other post)

    -If you have winboard and want to try something besides GNUchess, the most popular engine for the GUI: crafty, by Robert Hyatt. Not anywhere as user-friendly as something like Chessmaster, but a great engine. Er, and I'm not sure this has an actual open source license or if it's merely free as in beer.

    -connect to an open source chess server, the Free Internet Chess server; use Winboard as an interface and play internet chess with players from around the world

    -organize your game scores or study those of the greats with Shane Hudson's SCID chess database. Search the database by player name, Elo rating, openings, etc. This is an incredible program, usable, fast, and stable!

  12. Re:Chess by SashaM · · Score: 1 · on The Best of Windows Open Source Software?

    Oh, and Winboard is a rather old client, but it (currently) supports more chess servers and doubles as a front end for chess engines (default installation comes with GNUChess).

  13. Re:Deep, man. by bowronch · · Score: 1 · on Men vs. Machines

    What's with the "Deep" designation? Are the programmers for the chess projects all aging hippies?


    Think Douglas Adams...

    Deep Thought was a computer chess machine built at Carnegie-Mellon University in the 1980's. It was a predecessor to Deep Blue, the chess machine that defeated Garry Kasparov in a match. Neither machine exists at this time.

    BTW anybody interested in computer chess might be interested in my program BACE which should have the ability to learn to play better as it goes along... unfortunately the learning process is not working right now, but it does play a decent game of chess (rated ~1900 blitz on FICS)
  14. Ive seen that before.. by irc(addict) · · Score: 1 · on AlphaSmart Shows Palm-Based Laptop

    Now where was it.. Ah yes! :)

  15. Re:Emulators? by Dave+Fiddes · · Score: 1 · on Tandys Never Die

    The trash 80 has a perfectly good emulator:
    http://www.tim-mann.org/xtrs.html
    Unfortunately I haven't been able to try out all of my old TRS-80 Model I software on it because the box with my tape of Space Invaders is right at the back of my loft and I'm too lazy ;)

  16. Re:Deep Thought by mgarraha · · Score: 1 · on Brain vs. Computer: Place Your Bets

    Tim Mann, author of XBoard and WinBoard, has published Deep Thought's evaluation function tuning program on behalf of developer Andreas Nowatzyk.

  17. Re:do they webcast? by mgarraha · · Score: 2 · on Automated Chess Battling

    This wheel is already invented. freechess.org has enabled (human|computer) vs (human|computer) chess over the internet since 1995. Their now commercial parent chessclub.com started in 1992. They sometimes have tournaments for homemade chess programs. Tim Mann's XBoard/Zippy is a nice stable client if you want a GUI for your brainchild; RoboFICS is good if you don't.

    Someone on freechess.org usually sets up a mirror game for people to observe when there's a human championship. Maybe they'll do the same for the computer championship.